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Dear Representative Brad Sherman,

I have strong reservations about the efficacy of any ban imposed on crypto in the USA, as it won’t alleviate the evolution of money in the rest of the world. “Love cannot be compelled” and it will be up to the US to maintain its geopolitical relevance in this century by staying IN the game (e.g. the State of Wyoming) but without relying on traditional centralized tools and levers of control such as swift, Fedwire, etc.

My article from 1 year ago appears to have even more relevance today

#crypto #geopolitics #decentralization #congress #regulations #wyoming
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You can reach me with questions or comments on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneswinton/

San Francisco

During a casual conversation with a friend this past weekend, I was asked: “What does blockchain have to do with politics or geopolitics, and how can it improve a society’s self-governance?”. He went on saying, “after all, blockchain is just a technology, just a different version of an excel spreadsheet that sits on a cloud and not worth the hype”.

My opinion on this is very simple. With every century or millennium of evolution, humankind is shifting away from a strictly centralized model, such as a monarchy, to newer formats where the percentage of power concentrated in the hands of a select few is reduced. Each society and each culture is moving at their own pace along the X-axis from left to right on the below image, with the most advanced of them currently being in the stage of democracy, where about 40-50% of power resides in the hands of institutions, which we collectively elected and agreed to place their authority above ourselves to maintain order and guarantee fairness of all kind of transactions or human interactions.

We have politicians, we have judges and arbitrage courts, we have Fed &central banks, we use custody and escrow services, we have real estate agents and government land registries, we have centralized stock exchanges …. we literally have intermediaries in every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately, such centralized intermediaries and institutions have a strong tendency of becoming corrupt and rotting over time defeating the original purpose of why they were created. Besides the unnecessary friction, centralized institutions accumulate asymmetrical power and frequently run the risk of betraying the trust that the public put into them.

So, what does it have to do with blockchain? Everything!

One of the biggest advantages that blockchain provides is its “trustless” nature and its huge potential to disintermediate any concentration of power across all aspects of human society. The term “trustless” doesn’t mean the trust is no longer needed between the transacting parties, instead, it means the trust is automatically provided and guaranteed by the DLT technology to eliminate counter-party risk and provide peace of mind. By disintermediating all the processes, we reduce– if not eliminate, unnecessary friction and existing asymmetries in society, including reducing the percentage of direct involvement from government, pushing it along the X-axis one step further to the right and closer to Republic (see above image).

Can we make it happen as a society? Only time will show.

Today people are divided into two camps: those who trash-talk anything that has to do with blockchain or crypto and those who praise it as the holy grail. It shows a split of mentality between:

a) those, who prefer to live their life with some superpower always above their head, who would have the authority to prescribe what is right and what is wrong decision to make.

b) and those who prefer for everyone to be equal, with blockchain and smart contracts technology taking the main load of delivering fairness and trust among members of society.

Today’s technology advancements offer a unique evolutionary opportunity to modern society to transition from previous clumsy centralized societal structures to more robust and dynamic peer-to-peer human transactions and interactions. For the first time in history, we can have billions of human decisions amplified by the swarm wisdom of AI, billions of human interactions accelerated by the speed of 5G and achieve this bypassing any central authority in a truly democratized fashion through the use of distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). And by the way, examples of this already exists if we look at the mother nature: shoaling and schooling fish, flocks of birds, swarms of bees and ants.

It may take another decade for people to fully grasp the benefits of the technology and it may take another century before humans dare to implement structural changes, such as using crypto as the world’s reserve currency, but it appears that the process has started and has surpassed the point of no return –regardless of how the incumbents in power today try to resist this paradigm shift through their lobby groups or regulations.

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You can reach me with questions or comments on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneswinton/

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On this day 2 years ago we were part of the crew that climbed to the top of Africa, the Uhuru Peak of the Mt.Kilimanjaro. Due to 3 minor mistakes on our own part, a climb that was supposed to be just a simple hike to the top turned out to be a real challenge with a direct threat to our lives at the altitude of close to 20 000 ft.

Thanks to Big Elias (Elias Massawe), the most trusted guide and a sherpa with decades of experience, we were able to cope with the panic and managed to ignite the impossible sparks of strength & motivation to find our way back to safety. We are indefinitely grateful to Elias for his decisive actions and strength of character on this day. 

If Big Elias were to live his life here in North America, his resilience and leadership skills would have yielded him a high-ranking executive position. But Elias was born, educated and lived all his life in Tanzania, Africa where his work as a professional guide and as a sherpa provided means for his family.

Unfortunately, over the years, Elias has developed Achilles Tendinitis condition in his left foot to the point that it is hard for him to walk. In 2017, at the age of 44 Elias was forced to end his  17-year long career as a Guide and a Sherpa. In his track record, Elias has many achievements, including helping Angela Vorob’eva to set a Guinness World Record by becoming the oldest woman to climb to the top of Mt.Kilimanjaro at the age of 86. Elias himself has climbed to the top of the mountain well over 100 times, helping others achieve their goals. But today (!) Elias is asking for help.

Due to his medical condition, he is no longer able to take any crews to the top of Kili and needs to find an alternative way to feed his wife, 3 kids, his father, and younger brother. To make a living Elias has decided to set up a farm with greenhouses to grow tomatoes and sweet peppers. We are asking you to join us and help Elias fund his first 3 greenhouses at $700 each. I hope we can beat this target by a multiple.

We hope we can enable a strong and decent man to live the 2nd half of his life with self-respect and the ability to continue to support his family. 

You can send us a private message if you have any questions. On our own behalf and on the behalf of Elias, thank you for helping us help our most trusted Sherpa!

Gene Swinton (KS16) & Max Ryans (KS17)

Toronto, Canada

LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/geneswinton
www.linkedin.com/in/maxryans

#MITFintech | Boston, MASS

1. There is still a great amount of confusion both among the general public and IT industry professionals about blockchain, how it is different from crypto-currencies and where it derives value from. Many seem to be unable to fully understand the magnitude of potential transformation which blockchain is expected to bring to society.

2. Rachel Halesma, a representative from World Bank involved with various blockchain projects around the globe, does not perceive blockchain’s high appetite for electricity (i.e. mining) to be a real problem.

3. Kevin O’Leary from ‘Shark Tank’ apparently owns “a LOT of crypto” and is positively LONG on it. He is convinced that ICOs will make IPOs disappear. (comment below how do you think this statement reconciles with the recent announcement from Google to ban all ICO advertising effective June 2018)

4. Panelists made emphasis on discussions around developing “ecosystems” with network effects. Gravitation forces growing over time around an ecosystem can be a good predictor of a blockchain value (and value of a coin that represents it).

5. The industry is still in its infancy, but very rapidly evolving. If you snooze — you lose. It proves to be a challenge to keep up with the industry even for those working with blockchain technology on a daily basis.

6. Gary Gensler from CFTC confirmed that after a recent meeting in Tokyo with regulators from multiple jurisdictions NO COUNTRY has yet developed any clear idea as to how to approach crypto-currencies. Governments have a choice between 3 options with respect to crypto: i) Isolate, ii) Integrate, or iii) Regulate.

7. As far as ICOs goes, Gary confirmed that most likely all of the ICOs will fall under the existing securities regulation frameworks in the majority of jurisdictions. Over the past few weeks, SEC sent out dozens of subpoenas to non-compliant ICOs. Things are expected to get even tougher in the USA.

And my final observation is less serious…

8. Every project team or every panel discussion during the #MITFintech event tends to include at least one engineer or entrepreneur with an unshaven beard. Blockchain = Beard?

You can reach me with questions or comments on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneswinton/